These Dark Places
by shaman-says
Summary: A collection of shorts about original characters in the Harry Potter universe, post-story. May get ugly. Heavy abuse of verb tenses.
1. Chapter 1

In his Auror days it was simpler, although there was still Michael there as a reminder. The months at the Ministry seemed to blur into one another. He rarely slept; ate little. Here is one of the things he remembers with the sort of clarity of a vivid dream:

He is with Michael, Williamson, Thatcher, and Weasley, and all around them are the others. They know dark wizards have been gathering around Europe with growing frequency and they do not know why. They are a flurry of spells, trying to catch one of these ghosts, to learn things from them, things Adrien has known all along. A flash of green light snakes just over his shoulder and he turns, firecasting, and sees Ilya there before him. Ilya Zdravkov, motionless amongst the chaos, smiling thinly with the firelight on his face.

And he remembers, after the fighting, in the dark of night when he has left the Aurors: "You nearly killed me."

And Ilya smiles again, serene, framed by his long dark hair, hair which falls now down around his shoulders and past the small of his back; he still has not cut it. He runs his pale fingers along Adrien's face and says, "But as long as he loves you, baby brother, I'll miss."

And they know this is true.


	2. Chapter 2

He wrote to Lucian in the dark, huddled beneath the cold pines. His hands shook as he penned the words. _I am still alive_, he wrote, and sent the letter away, tying it to Mioche and watching him sail into the darkness. He wiped the blood from his nose, blood he had almost forgotten about. He tried to quell the shuddering in his lungs.

At work Michael looked at him as if he may have understood, and if anything he would remember the things he has seen; he knows the scar on Adrien's shoulder, knows the nights with Lucian and Michael and Adrien all pressed together in one bed, knows the shakes as they come after the curse. Twins, the strangest thing—some days he looks at Michael and sees Lucian. It is something changed in his face, not like a mirror, but like a glimpse through. Lucian has disappeared now, into these dark places. Within the year, Adrien disappears as well.

He gets a letter. _Still alive. Two new scars_.

Ociel, The Father, looks at him as if the evil secret is written on his heart.


	3. Chapter 3

The castle stood oblivious and unbreakable, a sprawling labyrinth of stone. He remembered many things from his days there but they had not crossed his thoughts for quite some time. He arrived before the students, looking up at the spires against the sky. The old magic of Hogwarts settled in his bones and for once he felt almost safe. It brought him back to Ociel looking at him from his wide dark desk, the humanity gone out of his eyes, the stone clutched tight between his fingers.

There is a pressure to Ociel. It can be felt in the lungs, in the inside of the skull, down in the pit of the stomach. He presses on the mind and grazes the edge of thoughts. Adrien could feel him, those dark fingers in his consciousness, searching for something, for anything. It was like a dance, Ociel reaching, Adrien folding things away. Lucian had taught him to do this when he was only sixteen, Occlumency to keep Ociel from the deepest parts of him, to make secrets. Lucian was the secret now. The only thing saving him was Ociel's lack of trying, believing Adrien too broken to defy.

Ociel told him to apply to the teaching position for Defense Against the Dark Arts, looking at him from the desk. He expected nothing, but the letter came within the month.

When he walks into Hogwarts he does so as a lie, something savage and careless, wearing the face of a friend. He talks with the other teachers, some of whom he knows, has known since he was a student here almost five years ago. He finds his rooms and Lucian finds him. Lucian is teaching Transfiguration by some brutal caprice of fate and he has the same tiredness to his eyes and they are locked in a hug for what feels like a very long time. He smells the same. He is still warm.


	4. Chapter 4

They felled the centaurs one at a time until they came to the one with the black bow clutched in his hands. It was Ilya, sixteen, who flashed out the killing curses, the short bursts of bright green in the white of the forest in winter. Adrien was only nine and stood close by Ociel's side, the man's hand resting on his shoulder.

He saw Ilya walk out to the body, standing over it and looking down, a sharp streak of black clothes and black hair and a wand loose in his fingers. He said, "Yes, this is the one."

Ociel let Adrien slide from his grip. "Go," was all he said, and Adrien went, walking through the thick snow with the cold sinking into his bones. The bow was long and dark as Ilya's hair and there were creatures carved along it in silver, terrible howling things with gemstone eyes. Ociel warned them the curse would destroy them if they so much as touched the old wood. The centaur was twisted and black, not from Ilya, but from the magic which had eaten him alive. Silent, Ilya and Adrien moved to either side of the fallen body, which lay cooling against the earth, still as a statue, spilling no blood at all.

"_Wingardium leviosa_," Adrien whispered, as he could not yet cast without speaking like Ilya could. Ilya flicked his wand and together they watched the bow tugging at the dead creature's fingers. Adrien's spell was unsteady; he was still unused to wand magic, learned deep in the forests of Europe at Ociel's insistence before he so much as set foot in Hogwarts. The bow wobbled and pulled free and they raised it into the air.

There was a tugging, deep within Adrien's chest. The bow was slipping from his grasp. Ilya was staring at him with steady eyes, pulling it away. "Ilya," Adrien said, pleading, but the whole thing spiraled out of his control; he pulled back on his wand too quickly and Ilya pulled in response and the bow spun in the air and rocketed into the snow a few feet away.

"It was _mine_," Ilya said. Adrien realized he was shaking. "_It was supposed to be mine. You're not supposed to be here._"

"Ilya," Ociel said, one word, cold as the ice around them.

"I hate him!" Ilya screamed. "Why are you here? Why won't you just die?"

The curse came out of nowhere and hit him in the chest, sending him doubling back and careening as the bow had done. Ilya hit the trunk of one of the trees around the clearing so hard Adrien could hear his teeth click. Snow fell from the branches and covered his legs. He let out a quiet noise, then blood, running from between his lips and his shattered chest.

"Ilya!" Adrien said, and started to run to him. The second curse took him in the arm, and he saw the shattering happen, and felt nothing for a moment. He hit the snow and only then did his arm erupt with the pain.

Ociel stood as still as the forest and slowly lowered his wand. He walked without a sound to the bow and wrapped his hand around the grip. He lifted it from the snow. Adrien watched this with a buzzing in his head, his left arm blown wide open at the elbow, and he could see the bone pink under the muscle; his hand seemed attached only by sinewy threads. He could not move his fingers. There was a brief moment where he wondered why the curse had not taken Ociel as well, unsure of what sort of dark thing could hold such a dark thing and overpower it.

His head was reeling, screaming. Ociel knelt down next to him.

"You killed Ilya," Adrien heard himself saying, broken words, sounding neither French nor English. "Ilya—"

"Do you remember your healing spells, Adrien?"

A sob caught low in his throat and he was not sure who was crying. "Yes."

"Fix yourself," Ociel told him.

He could barely hold the wand in his shaking fingers; he was weeping, bleeding, cold. His blood was pumping dark out over the snow and there was a dizziness settling into him. He could not remember the words to the spells. He could not remember the motions. "Please," Adrien said.

Ociel rose. He walked to Ilya, kneeling once again. "Do you remember your healing spells, Ilya?" Adrien heard him ask, but Ilya's eyes were closed; his breaths were shallow gasps and he was gray. Ociel shook his head as if dealing with a petulant child. Adrien tried and tried to mend his arm.

He must have survived, for he grew older; he spoke and slept and walked like a living thing. He does not remember Ociel casting the healing spells, although he must have. He remembers Ilya later, still and silent with hopelessness in his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

_If we have each other we don't need anyone else._

He could still taste the potion bitter on his brother's lips.

_As long as you love me no one will hurt us._

_No one._

There was nothing between them, no love and no spaces, Ilya's chest pressed against his, bone into bone, rib into rib, heart drumming over heart. He could smell him, blood and softness, feel the thinness of him, the hands brushing over his hair. They never met each other's eyes. Lightning flicked through the sky and reminded him with each bright flash that the world did not end with the walls of this room.

Another kiss, one more kiss. Say it is the last.

One more kiss.

Ilya moved in darkness like it was part of him. In the halls at night he was silent as he walked. In shadow he disappeared. Even now Adrien was not sure which one of them was the ghost. Ilya knew, Ilya always knew, and whispered it as he leaned over Adrien in Adrien's bed, in the house of the only father they remembered.

_(youaresoprettyinred) (prettyinpain) (sopretty)_

It was time to bring this to a stop.

_(i'mafraidtoloseyou)_

_(please)_


End file.
